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Building closer ties with industry to achieve student success

15 March 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Rulanzen Martin

IAC members — The IAC from left; Dr Ivor Zwane, Reneë Beck, Gus Silber, Luhlumelo Toyana, Dr Adri van der Merwe, Nick Efstathiou, Avela Ntsongelwa, Prof Colin Chasi, HOD Communication Department, Alzane Narrain, Nomvo Bam and Dr Gustav Puth.

Building ties with industry experts provides greater prospects for bursaries, prizes for top students, as well as informal internships. This is why the Department of Communication Science at the University of the Free State (UFS) took the bold and commendable step of soliciting the expertise of an Industry Advisory Council (IAC).

“As a department we believe it is important to stay in touch with the industry to ensure that we, and the work we do, stays relevant in order to increase the chances of making our students preferred candidates in the workplace,” said Dr Adri van der Merwe, lecturer at the department.

The advisory panel consisted of Reneë Beck, founder and CEO of Pink Lemon; Nick Efstathiou, newly appointed CEO of Central Media Group; DDr Ivor Zwane, chairman of the board for Small to Medium Enterprise Development; education journalist Gus Silber; journalist Alzane Narrain; Dr Gustav Puth, Academic Director of Post-Graduate Executive Education at Monash South Africa; photographer Luhlumelo Toyana; Avela Ntsongelwa,master's student and Nomvo Bam.

The initiative also created a platform for the students to engage with IAC members. The Department hosted the IAC on 6 March 2019 on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus.

Advice to assist in improving curriculum

“The IAC members’ feedback will influence our curriculum, both in the short term when we begin to shift emphasis on certain matters, as well as in the longer term when we replace or expand on specific modules,” Van der Merwe said.

The advice given by IAC members will be taken very seriously. “We have captured all their input on video, and will now, in preparation for our strategic planning session later this year, analyse and prioritise the actions we need to implement their proposals.” she said. The students are also represented on the IAC in order to hear and take into consideration what the students have to say about how the curriculum can be improved to prepare them more effectively for the workplace.

The department plan on hosting the IAC yearly.

Elbie Lombard, lecturer in the Department and Lihlumelo Toyana

Nick Efstathiou listening to Dr Ivor Zwane (right)

Students listening to the panel talk about trends in Communication Industry

Prof Colin Chasi, HOD of the Department Communication Science with Gus Silber

The IAC members during Q&A session with students

Alzane Narrain with Dr Adri van Der Merwe and Prof Francis Petersen

Students from the Department Communication Science

Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor with Dr Adri Van Der Merwe and Avela Ntsongelwa

News Archive

Expert in Africa Studies debunks African middle class myth

2016-05-10

From left: Prof Heidi Hudson, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), Joe Besigye from the Institute of Reconciliation and Social Justice, and Prof Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor at the CAS and guest lecturer for the day.
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

Until recently, think tanks from North America, the African Development Bank, United Nations Development Plan, and global economists have defined the African middle class based purely on monetary arithmetic. One of the claims made in the past is that anyone with a consumption power of $2 per day constitutes the middle class. Following this, if poverty is defined as monetary income below $1.5 a day, it means that it takes just half a dollar to reach the threshold considered as African middle class.

Prof Henning Melber highlighted the disparities in the notion of a growing African middle class in a guest lecture titled A critical anatomy of the African middle class(es), hosted by our Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the University of the Free State on 4 May 2016. He is an Extraordinary Professor at the Centre, as well as Senior Adviser and Director Emeritus of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Sweden.

Prof Melber argued that it is misleading to consider only income when identifying the middle class. In his opinion, such views were advanced by promoters of the global neo-liberal project. “My suspicion is that those who promote the middle class discourse in that way, based on such a low threshold, were desperate to look for the success story that testifies to Africa rising.”

Another pitfall of such a middle-class analysis is its ahistorical contextualisation. This economically-reduced notion of the class is a sheer distortion. Prof Melber advised analysts to take cognisance of factors, such as consumption patterns, lifestyle, and political affiliation, amongst others.

In his second lecture for the day, Prof Melber dealt withthe topic of: Namibia since independence: the limits to Liberation, painting the historical backdrop against which the country’s current government is consolidating its political hegemony. He highlighted examples of the limited transformation that has been achieved since Namibia’s independence in 1990.

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